A little while back, I wrote about the multiple falsehoods in an e-mail making the rounds, an e-mail claiming that Barack Obama had registered for college as a foreigner named Barry Soetoro. Unable to substantiate the fibs in that e-mail, conspiracy theorists tried to shift focus by making a different argument. Person after person wrote that Barack Obama had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars, or nearly a million dollars, or millions of dollars, all for lawyers to suppress his “real” birth certificate.
Of course, Barack Obama’s “real” birth certificate, a certified copy sufficient to get a driver’s license or a passport and thereby just about anything else (accompanied by verification of the existence of the original and of Obama’s birth in Hawaii by the Republican Director of the Hawaii Department of Health) has already been produced. But facts don’t stop the conspiracy theorists. Facts aren’t necessary, either. All they need is the appearance of factuality to keep their bizarre fictional rage stoked.
On that point, let’s return to the claims that somehow the Obama campaign paid lawyers hundreds of thousands of dollars, or nearly a million dollars, or millions of dollars, you know, some really big sum for lawyers to keep Barack Obama’s “real” birth certificate hidden. Here are just a few examples out of many I’ve had slung my way:
Cherie writes:
FACT: Barry Boy has paid millions in many states and two countries to CONCEAL all his records. His WHITE mother and WHITE grandparents are conveniently now all DEAD.
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Ken writes:
If it is a lie and a right wing conspiracy, why is Obama allowing millions to be spent to hide the truth. The best way to stop a lie is with truth so why does Obama allows Soros and others to spend copius amounts of money to hide the truch.
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whipporwil writes:
IF IF IF OBAMA IS LEGITIMATE REGARDING HIS U.S BIRTH, THEY WHY WILL HE NOT RELEASE PROOF AND WHY HAS HE SPEND ALMOST A MILLION DOLLARS ON ATTORNEYS TO KEEP THIS QUIET???
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Mike L writes:
It amuses me that Obama loves to release “documents” because he believes in full transparency (campaign lie #107), yet he spends $100,000’s to keep his real birth cert under lock and key
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to discern writes:
It appears that spending nearly $1 mil in legal fees to seal records of links to his real citizenship does raise the suspicions
These are very stark factual claims being made, but not one of these people, you’ll notice, links to any kind of documentation of the claim. So a bit more than a week ago, I issued a challenge: show me the documentation for this claim. Not another rant about Obama’s “socialism.” Not a screed about “media bias.” Not an attack on my motivations… and NOT a link to how much Barack Obama has paid his lawyers overall. Campaigns have a lot of legal expenses. People who say that Barack Obama has spent some amount of money to have lawyers hide his “real” birth certificate should be able to link to some document showing specific expenditures for those reasons… or they shouldn’t be making their claims.
How many people do you think, in a dozen or so comments, provided links to any such documents? I’ll give you a hint: the number is less than one and rhymes with “Nero.”
The closest anybody came was to link to the FEC and make reference to $688,000 being spent by the Obama campaign on legal expenses after the election of 2008. Well, that much is true: here’s the link to a mainstream news analysis of FEC disclosures revealing that the Obama campaign made $688,000 in payments of legal fees after the 2008 election was over.
But of course that doesn’t show that the Obama campaign spent “hundreds of thousands,” or “nearly a million,” or “millions of dollars” on getting lawyers to hide Barack Obama’s “real” birth certificate. Presidential election campaigns, especially successful ones, have all kinds of lawyerly activities associated with them, from securing ballot access to ensuring campaign regulation compliance to working through the legal machinery to accomplish a smooth transition of power. But the conspiracy theorists simply imagine that all the legal fees paid out after a campaign is done must be in the service of… hiding a birth certificate! One that’s already been released!
It’s deluded. It’s insane. We’ll get comments to this post swearing up and down that it all makes sense, even though no, it doesn’t. I’ll ask them for the evidence, and they’ll provide a link to some WorldNet Daily editorial about tea parties and Tony Rezko. And on it goes…
… but let’s punch through to the other side of this deluded conspiracy theory and hypothetically accept for the moment that the fact of Barack Obama paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees somehow means that he is of foreign birth and therefore constitutionally unfit for the presidency.
Well, hey then, kids! Let’s check out legal fees paid out by the Bush-Cheney campaign of 2004, also after the finish of the campaign! Just for kicks and giggles, we’ll limit our search to legal fees paid out by a subset of the Republicans’ 2004 campaign: the Bush-Cheney compliance committee. I’ll even document the searches: Report #1, Report #2.
The total dollar amount of legal fees paid out after the election by the Bush campaign, according to these reports, is $337,172! And that’s just in 2005 dollars. In 2009 dollars that would be nearly $400,000!
Hey, it’s on the same order of magnitude as the Obama expenditure, buckos, and there wasn’t even a presidential transition after the 2004 election. That can only mean one thing: George W. Bush was really born in Bhutan! I mean, what else besides the desperate attempt by the Bush campaign to hide Dubya’s “real” birth certificate could explain these legal fees?
Go on, spread this new truth far and wide. Bush, the Illegitimate Bhutano-Fascist Pretender to the Presidency! Now It Can Be Told!
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